What is Depth Psychology?

            Have you had moments when, suddenly, in response to some external event, a flood of emotions cascades through your body, or perhaps some old memories begin to surface? In such moments, perhaps even your awareness lessens and you find yourself pulled along by the flow of your emotions and dysregulated thinking. Chances are, if you’re human, you know what I’m talking about to some degree.

            Depth psychology might define this as a complex, or an imprinted response arising from our very early experiences in childhood. Specifically, it would say that these complexes, old memories, hidden feelings, darker thoughts, belong to our unconscious.

            Deeper than this, though, depth psychology is an orientation to the unconscious that invites relationship with it through a deepened understanding of our dreams, thoughts, and feelings, as well as our conscious experience in daily life. Depth psychotherapy is work that arises from this orientation, and from an appreciation of the often archetypal forces that exist within us personally and collectively. Because of this, depth psychotherapy tends to hold a more transpersonal orientation to psychology allowing space for the psychospiritual to enter therapeutic work.

            When I do work with people, my background of training at Pacifica Graduate Institute means that I work from a depth psychological perspective. I value and appreciate the symbolic, the archetypal, and the numinous, feeling that it has an important place in therapy. The unconscious is always with us, an alive force that we can choose to honor consciously or not. Depth psychology chooses to honor it and enter into relationship with the unknown and unknowable.

            This is, generally, what marks depth psychological orientations from more classically behavioral therapies. It is not a manualized treatment. It is about radical relationship, and uncovering something deeper within ourselves that already has a deep knowing about our lives and the path forward.

If this perspective resonates with you, I invite you to reach out via the “Contact” page with more questions or curiosity about working with me. Continue reading about my approach in the “Writings” section.

Next in this Introduction series is “What is Hakomi?”